Chapter 319: Consideration, and the Soldat.
Chapter 319: Consideration, and the Soldat.
“Iya-, that was a good meal. I havn’t ate anything decent in three days, after all. As expected, I can’t possibly go for stuff like bugs or frogs.”
After chomping down on a huge amount of food I took out from [Storage] like dragon meat skewers and what not, Dr. Elka had finally calmed down. She ate about as much as Yae… Well, I guess it’s fine.
“And, why is Touya-kun in a place like this? I’m saved thanks to that but…”
“I was looking for you, to ask you something.”
“Me? Then, is it something related to golems?”
“Well, that’s part of it but… I wonder where I should even start from. First, take a look at this.”
I took out the newspaper I bought earlier, and pointed to the article regarding the variants’ attack.
While Dr. Elka read the article I pointed out, Fenrir also looked at it from the side. That wolf golem can even read letters, can’t he…
“I see, the golden monster that was becoming a hot topic recently. And?”
“That’s a dependant born from an evil god. The advance guard of the evil god’s forces, which are appearing in this world in the name of conquest. Eventually, they would begin to appear all over the world, and cause havoc. The entire world is in danger.”
“… Is your head ok? Should I introduce you to a good doctor?”
Dr. Elka looked at me while shifting her thick glasses as if looking at a pitiful child. Even Fenrir next to her is looking at me with similar eyes.
No, I know that I sounded like a suspicious priest or a sham fortune-teller just now too, ok!?
I need to explain in more details in order to solve this misunderstanding.
“I’m actually a king from a world different to this one.” (Note: *facepalm*)
“Ahh, it’s already too late…”
“It’s a tragedy that he looks normal on the outside…”
It’s not like that! Stop looking at me with sad expressions!!
After that, it took me several hours to explain everything to them. Words sure are troublesome…
“I see, I see. ‘Invaders that came from another world’ and ‘a different world next to our own’, huh. Well, it’s not something impossible in theory. Otherwise it’d be impossible to explain the ability of Noir.”
“Noir?”
“The [Black] of the [Crown] series. It controls the gear of time and the gate of dimensions. It’s capable of pulling a desired object in from a parallel world. I never expected there to be a person from that very world in front of me…”
The [Crown] again, huh. That [Black Crown] seems to be capable of wielding spacetime magic. Perhaps, the thing Elder Palerius met 5000 years ago is that [Crown]…
“Still, it’s something hard to believe, to say the least. You can’t expect me to go ‘oh, is that so’ upon hearing someone telling me he’s from another world. Could be a new kind of fraud or something.”
“If it’s actually a fraud, it’s one thought up by someone pretty stupid, honestly.”
How rude, these two… Well, I understand how they feel. Even I myself felt that what I just said sounds fishy as hell. For them to believe me, I guess…
The existence of the Phrase would be proof beyond all doubts, but fortunately, or unfortunately for me right now, this world hasn’t been attacked by the Phrase yet. There’s not enough material for them to believe in me. It might also have ended with them thinking that the Phrase was some kind of new magic beast.
For now, should I just forcibly drag her to the Surface World in order for her to completely believe my words?
Ah.
“Then, I’ll show you something that absolutely doesn’t exist in this world.”
“Absolutely doesn’t exist?”
I opened [Storage] before Dr. Elka who’s tilting her head, and brought Reginleiv which was stored inside out. My beloved machine landed on the ground with a loud thud.
“Fuaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-!?”
“Fuooooooooooooo-!?”
One person and one wolf solidified on the spot while looking up at the crystal armor-covered giant soldier, their eyes opened wide and their mouth hanging loose.
“This is a Frame Gear. It’s a mechanical soldier born to protect the world from the Phrase… The invaders from another world.”
“Frame Gear…? Is it not a golem?”
“Wrong. Different from golems, Frame Gears don’t have their own consciousness. They’re something that moves when a person rides in them after all.”
“A frame without its own thoughts, huh. Yeah, you can’t call those golems. They’re more like weapons or tools.”
“Well, we still hold attachments for them like a trusty partner, unlike regular tools. I believe that’s something they have in common with the golems of this world.”
As a sort of demonstration, I got into Reginleiv and did some simple manoeuvres while flying for the two to see. I kind of got into it, and even showed the Fragarach to them.
When I looked at the ground from the monitor within Reginleiv, the figure of one person and one wolf who had solidified again while looking towards the sky was shown. Seems like I was successful in surprising them.
Upon returning to the ground and getting out of the Reginleiv’s cockpit, Dr. Elka started dashing full-speed towards me.
“Gimme that!”
“No.”
Upon promptly slicing her hope in half, Dr. Elka crumbled down on the spot with a face that looked as if the world’s ending. Like I’d give it to you that easily.
She was throwing a tantrum like a little kid wanting a toy for a while, but after Fenrir chewed on her butt a little, I managed to regain the calm atmosphere that was here before. She’s still mumbling something under her breath, however.
For the moment, since it seemed like they finally believed me, I put Reginleiv back into [Storage] and started talking again.
The matter at hand was, in the case that the variants appear en masse in this world, whether it has any good methods to deal with that.
“It seems to be an opponent that can be defeated using several strong golems, but it might be tough. There’s a rank within golems as well, and there are ones that have basically no fighting power, after all.”
Well, that’s true. That crab bus at Sancho-san’s place is probably something used exclusively for movement. It’s quite obviously not something you use for combat. I don’t think our three [Etoile] golems are combat-oriented, either.
“Master, what about those military-use golems? If it’s them, they won’t lose at least in terms of numbers.”
“Numbers, eh? However, if the quality is too low that still wouldn’t work in this case, would it? Since if they aren’t completely defeated, it would be the same as leaving them alone.”
“Military-use golems?”
I interjected between the two of them upon hearing a term fresh to my ears.
“In general, one person can only own one golem. That’s due to the fact that if one person tries to control several golems at once, a jamming effect may occur; but military-use golems… Or Soldats, as we call them; they do not have that restriction. So one person can control several golems at once in that case.”
Those military-use golems—[Soldats]—seem to be able to move with coordination in a small corps under a leader golem, a [Sargent]. (Note: the phonetics here didn’t sound exactly like sergeant, so that’s the one I decided on.)
So that means, if a golem user makes a contract with a Sargent golem, he would be able to control the Soldats under it as well.
I see, since he would technically be controlling one golem, there wouldn’t be jamming effects happening. However…
“All of the Soldats are Factory golems. Which means they don’t have Golem Skills. Furthermore, the number of golems a person can control depends on the individual. I think a good average would be 5 for one person? And they also have the weakness of the Soldats stopping their functions if the Sargent that is their leader is taken out.”
“Err… Which means?”
“A single Legacy might be better in comparison. Depending on the situation, that is.”
(Note: a reminder for those of you who don’t remember: for the golems of this world, Factory means a golem made by modern technologies and doesn’t hold a skill, while Legacy means a golem made by the old civilizations in this world and often holds a special skill.)
Umumu. So basically, is it like this? Either have a person who controls a strong golem with a power of 10, or have a person who controls five weak golems with a power of 2 each?
Well, it definitely does depend somewhat on the situation…
“But I’ve made a contract with 3 Legacy golems, you know? I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt anything like the jamming effect you described…”
“Legacies? … Are they perhaps part of the same series?”
“Yea, they’re three golems from the [Etoile] series.”
“Isn’t it hard to gather Legacies from the same series? Most of them are golems whose makers can’t be found after all. It’s true that in that case, there may be no jamming effect, but it’s unrealistic to have multiple Legacies of the same series.”
Right, the three of them were left-overs due to the fact that they couldn’t start up. Otherwise, rare Legacies like them would be sold in an instant.
“In conclusion, I suppose that if a situation where the variants you spoke of attacked this world in large numbers were to happen, we’d have no methods to resist them.”
As I feared. Even if the [Crown] series are strong, there’s a limit to the numbers they can handle; and they have “costs” that accompany their strengths as well.
For the other Legacies, they might be able to handle a lower-class variant, but if it’s against a middle-class, not to mention an upper-class, they’d lose in a heartbeat.
I guess the best option would be to have Frame Gears stationed permanently over here, and create an organization that hunts down the variants based on them.
At worst, I might have to rely on Nia and the gang from the [Red Cats], it seems…
“Well then, I have one question… Or rather, a request from my side too.”
“What is it? If it’s the Frame Gear, you’re not having it.”
“Cheh.”
Don’t click your tongue, damn it.
“While I do have a personal interest in that, well, we can leave that aside for the moment. You did say that you’re a king in that other world, right?”
“Well, tentatively.”
“Which means you would have more of those Frame Gears, and the authority to move them around freely?”
“Rather than authority… I do have several hundreds of them, but rather than my authority as king they’re all my personal belongings. No one else in the world has them anyway.”
No, wait, I handed that one Dragoon to Ende, didn’t I.
The Frame Gears are, until the end, my personal belongings rather than equipment belonging to Brunhild. I’m not using a single bit of the country’s money on their development or production costs, too. All the money came from my personal pockets, which is filled through the various trading deals I’ve made with Olba-san like the beigoma or baseball equipment.
“The request I have, is for you to lend that power to a small country I’m acquainted with located further up north from here.”
“Lend them my power?”
“Currently, that country is being invaded by a neighboring country and is in quite the pickle, you see. So I was wondering if you can stop that invasion somehow.”
The name of the small country is [Primula], and the invading country is the [Trihalan God- Empire], huh. Let’s see, searching… There.
I projected the map from the smartphone into the air. The map is reversed so it’s a bit hard to tell, but Primula seems to be a part of Xenoas back in the Surface World. And the invaders are basically Yulong…
…They’re similar, huh, the people who live in this region both in the Surface and the Reverse
World. Yulong also had that war against Hanock in the past.
“By the way, what kind of country is this [Trihalan God-Empire]?”
“It’s a hardcore authoritarian country with an emperor at the top, but he’s basically a figurehead. The real power of the empire lies with the empire’s senate. It’s that senate that ordered the invasion this time, too.”
Even the national structure feels similar to Yulong. The Heavenly Empire and the God-Empire…
“Trihalan God-Empire is one of the countries that employs the Soldats mentioned earlier in its armies. If it’s the number of military-use golems it possesses, it’s said that the God-Empire is behind only Garudio Empire and Magicraft Kingdom Eisengard.”
“Well, the countries that are using [Soldat] in their armies are almost nonexistent besides those three, anyway.”
Doesn’t that make it the weakest basically? Well, that’s how much a standard of “partnerships” is normal for using golems in this world, I suppose.
Still, intervening in a war, huh? Based on past experiences, nothing good will come out of this… Well, I don’t have to worry about my position over in this world, which is a good thing.
“To be honest, I feel that I shouldn’t butt in recklessly without knowing the background for this war. I’m fine if it’s just to the degree of stopping the war, but without hearing the details…”
“That’s fine. You can make your decision after meeting the Primula King and hearing the details from him. You don’t have much time, however. Apparently fighting has already started between the Primula Knight Order and the God-Kingdom Army.
If that’s the case, I’ve gotta hurry. I’d like to avoid the situation where the casualties increased because I was taking my time. Even if this is a different world from my own.
“Well then, let’s hurry. [Levitation].”
“Nyaa!?”
“Oou!?”
One person and one wolf started floating up from the ground slightly due to levitation magic.
“We’re going to be flying in the sky next, so try not to move around too much. It’s not dangerous, but it might get a little scary so you might want to close your eyes.”
““Fly!? Wai-””
Without waiting for them to finish, I brought Elka and Fenrir up several thousand meters into the air in one go using [Fly].
I should be able to reach the destination in a few minutes from here.
““Funguuuuuuuuuuuu-!?””
I looked towards my passengers before accelerating towards Primula Kingdom, and they were making pained faces for some reason. Oh, right, I forgot to make barriers for them, too. (Note: this guy is gonna get himself killed sooner or later. Except I don’t think anyone can kill him anymore…)
It’s troublesome to do all that, so I just made a [Prison] around the two that protected them from the wind or any kind of sudden shocks, among other things. I’ve set the oxygen density within to be the same as on the ground, for the moment.
Alright, with this it’s fine even if I raise the speed all the way.
Dr. Elka seems to be shouting something at me from within the [Prison], but I’ll hear her out later.
If I fly at full strength with this, it’ll be less than 5 minutes to the kingdom.
While leaving behind shockwaves from breaking the sound barrier, we travelled towards Primula Kingdom.